If Nevile's wife, with all her sins clotted on her, was dead, what was she herself going to do, or allow to be done? She had yielded to love—her first love and her last; but that had been long ago. Love, the fire, the trembling and the music in her heart; pride, the trust, the loyalty, the bliss of service; the wonder, the swooning, the glory like a sun upon her —all gone, burned out, or worked out. Why, how long had it lasted her? Her lips stretched to a bleak smile to think of it. Three months joy in herself, three months joy of him; then work, incessant and absorbing; and then the growth of a new pride, the pride of mind (for she found that she had a brain), and of a new love—for she found that she loved the creatures more than man. Education indeed! To draw from a child caught unawares the force and the brooding love of an Earth-Goddess.

In the beginning, she could have told herself (but never did), she was to be pitied, not blamed. Reticent among her free-speaking sisters, shy, what the maids call "a deep one," rarely a talker, keeping always her own counsel, she had first been moved to utter herself by the extreme carelessness of Ingram whether she did so or not. The blame—if it is to be laid—must be upon her mother when she, knowing Ingram's story of miserable marriage and separation, allowed the man to continue a friend of the house, be much with her girl, and unfold himself under her clear young eyes. What she was about—that masterful, self-absorbed woman—there's no saying. It was always supposed that, with five beautiful daughters to market, she had pushed Welbore Percival—Thomas Welbore Percival, East India merchant of The Poultry—into lavish entertainment of his friends and acquaintance. Ingram, a squire and son of squires, was perhaps a shade above her degree; she may have required him to give a tone. This, considering that wretched marriage of his—a month's engagement in defiance of head-shaking, a blazing Hanover Square wedding, a year's bickering, one month's acrimony (done by letter) and Ingram's unquenchable hatred of the woman—this, I say, you may well doubt. But I can give no other explanation. He came, he talked in his high-voiced, querulous, bitter-humoured way, he saw and sought the grave young Sanchia, and he won her pitying heart directly he had engrossed her watching eyes.

She was a girl intensely interested in a hundred dawning things, to whom love had come late. Until she was near twenty you would have thought her sexless. Senhouse, her poetical friend and teacher—her only friend, her only confidant—had dubbed her Artemis; and it may well have been his adoring service of her pure flame which first turned it inwards, to scorch her heart. All that she had learned of this scholar gypsy she poured out as balm over the stricken Ingram, who swallowed it and her together. Then the truth about him was blared upon her suddenly, and she found that he was to be pitied. Guileless victim of a hateful woman as she believed him then, she found that she held a store of balm. She pitied him deeply, she opened, she poured out her treasure. Enthusiasm for the saving work captained her thereafter; nothing would turn her from her purpose. Ingram was to be saved by love: she gave him all.

To do him justice, a young man born to possess and command, he did his best to repair what was beyond repair. He told her the truth unasked by her; he confessed that he loved her, and owned that he had no business to do it. Nearness, circumstance, brooding on that which was true of both of them and must not be uttered by either, did the rest. Upon that evening in the drawing-room when they found themselves alone, each trembling under the god, they simply drifted together, and without effort to resist, mingled their natures through the lips. Discovery, earthquake and eclipse, her mother's chill rage, her father's tears, her sisters' dismay; all this and more she endured. She passioned like a young martyr. She admitted the facts without comment, and accepted the consequences without a falter. They might have whelmed a greater heart than hers; turned on to the town as she was to all intent, at two-and-twenty, a girl with the face and figure of a goddess, with fifty pounds between her and the devil. They might have sent her, at the least, weeping and trembling into Ingram's arms. But they did not. She was of finer clay. She took a lodging in Pimlico, and, to fit herself for employment, went to school. The commercial course which she chose was the shortest possible, but all that she felt she could afford. "My dear young lady, we can only promise you a smattering—really no more for the money." "It must start me," said Sanchia, and began. There was a month more to run when Ingram found her, and, glad as she was of him, doting and doted upon, in the first flood of youth and love, she persisted in it, finished it out, and got her diploma for what it was worth, before, as he put it, she would listen to reason.

It sounded extremely reasonable to him what he then proposed; and also to her, though Chevenix scorned its propounder. As Ingram put it to her, it attracted her newborn pride of knowledge. She was to flesh her steel, so to speak, in reality: in plainer words, she, with her smattering of accounts, was to manage a great house, an army of servants, possibly an estate. Excessively in love as she was, with all the music of it in her untried ears, she knew already in herself that her mind must have other food than her heart's rapture. I think, indeed, that she would have declined him altogether if he had proposed nothing more tangible to her than perpetual honeymoon. That was what Senhouse would certainly have proposed to her—she saw that in every look of his, and read it in every line he sent her; but that had never attracted her. She had given Senhouse her confidence, but not her heart. Ingram's proposals, therefore, pleased her. She had not a sweet enough tooth, nor the taste for flattery which the other involved. She was entirely without vanity. Therefore, however little honourable and however much a lover of his ease Ingram may have shown himself in making them, his reasonable proposals were gratefully received. It was he who suggested, but she who took the lead. She began immediately to plan her new career—was perfectly business-like. Ingram was to leave London at once, and go to Wanless—to his duties of the bench, his delights of the field, cares of the farm. He was to announce to his househould his intention of "settling down"; and he was to announce the advent of a housekeeper. In this very outset of his bliss he must needs do as she bade him. He went, and made her ways as smooth as they could be made. Her rooms were assigned to her; her duties mapped out, the exact range of her authority. Her wages were fixed, to be paid quarterly. She would take nothing else from him—no jewellery (she wore nothing but simple things, which had been given her by her parents or sisters—amber, a string of cowries, an agate heart, a bangle or two), no frocks. She was to have two hundred a year, and throughout her time to this present she had no more, and kept herself exquisitely upon it, with a sense of what was due to him, to herself, and to her position, which was admirable, unhesitating, and never at fault. In due time she arrived and entered upon her career. That which was unlawful seemed now justified; the secret intimacy, the wedded amity, the giving, which was the dearest gain she had. Discretion, on her side unsleeping, on his the more effective because he never seemed to have any, secured them. There was no open scandal among the neighbours; whatever the household may have suspected, very little was said. Within a year her servants were her slaves. The Rector, it is true, reproached her for not going to church. She deprecated his indignation, but didn't go.

Up to the day when we first met with her, her garden-hat in her hand, reading her telegram by the garden window, she had been eight years governor of Wanless—and for nearly two of those years alone. For the first two or three of them Ingram, revelling in his snug ease, with little to do but devise things—alterations, extensions, ventures into farming, and the like, which it was her delight to execute—never left the county, hardly cared to leave the estate. He entertained very sparingly: Chevenix came once or twice, his own brother, Maxwell Ingram; there were some other dinner-parties to the countryside, hunt-breakfasts, once a hunt-ball, at none of which ceremonies did she appear. He endured these wearinesses, shrugging them away as soon as he could, to hasten from a dinner of dry toast and knives and forks to his room—the Master's room—where supper, Sanchia, sweet intimacy awaited him. He spent thus by far the cleanliest and most sane years of his wayward life. She soothed, amused, stimulated him at once. He taught her all he knew of country-lore, gave her, as they say, "the hang" of landed estate; he learned by teaching, and might have become a wholesome gentleman.

But domestic business called him to London presently. He went, and was away three months, with lawyers, fierce threatenings from Claire, intermediaries, friends of both parties, and the rest of them. He was worried, flurried, put into a rage; exploded, put himself a thousand times in the wrong; finally, he came back to Wanless embittered and restless. He came back to find himself welcome, but not excessively so. At least he thought not. His extensions, suggested in that first wonderful time—a range of glass-houses, new heating apparatus, acetylene gas installations, were well advanced. Sanchia's brows were often knit over estimates, specifications, and bills. He had to pay for novelties from which the salt had evaporated; he he was never very fond of paying, and now, it seemed, he wasn't very fond of what he had to pay for. Sanchia was kind to him, but there was a difference. She was as happy as the day was long, always at work, outdoors or in, had not a moment for him (business apart) until the very end of the day, when (at eleven or so) she dressed with care and went to him at his supper. Sanchia was perfectly happy; but he was not.

He stayed six months that year—from April to September; but then went to Scotland, deer-stalking, shooting pheasants. He was back for Christmas and brought a houseful of guests—all men. Again she welcomed him, again she was kind. He was now a little blunted to the fine shades of love, took his happiness as it happened to come, and could rub his hands over the household blessing she was. By-and-by, at the end of her fourth year, she took over the gardens as well as the house, was accepted by Mr. Menzies as his liege-lady and by young Clyde as much more than that. The estate- management, home-farm, woods, tenancies, were given up to her at the end of the fifth year, just before Ingram sailed for West Africa on a shooting expedition. By that time he had grown to depend upon her entirely for everything. She was become the faithful well-tried wife of standing, which in a man of Ingram's bone means that nothing remained of love but entire confidence and occasional gratification. After this, he left her for long periods together; for the whole of the eighth year he was abroad, "idiotically happy," as he had told her.

During all this time no intercourse with her family—except those furtive letters from her adoring old father, which were pitiful to her, because they could not be answered as he would have had them; and nothing from her friend of the Open, who had at last got himself a mate. It seemed that she had made a clean break, and that nothing of what had made her dawning life sweet and sane was to mingle with the sweetness and sanity which she had brought into Wanless. And then—after eight years—she caught herself looking back. And now—here was an end of the dream.

If you are to ask me what had changed her regard for Ingram during that solitary year, so that she received him at the end of it as she did, I don't know that I can tell you. Slowly discovery—of herself, of him—came to her, slowly combustible stuff was heaped within her; it slowly kindled, and smouldered long. No doubt he himself blew it into clear flame by his let-drop news of Claire's death. She had not known that: she never read the newspaper, having neither time for the world's affairs nor interest in them. Suddenly, by that, she was offended; suddenly saw him as he really was, always had been, and always must be. Suddenly, also, she saw herself, as brimming with life, energy to live and to make live, at the end of her music-time. The folds fell from her eyes, she could see Ingram as a man, squalid. Nay, more: she could now see him as a beast, ravening. Thereupon he gave her horror, so that she dared not look back upon her hours of blindness.

Perhaps he had offended her by his silence—his two letters, which she had neither invited nor answered. That can hardly account for it, since she had not written to him of her own initiative. Their parting certainly had been discrepant: the clinging and wistfulness had been hers, though she had uttered nothing of complaint or misgiving. But perhaps he had been too gay and nonchalant, a little too much the husband secure. For a week she had shivered at her loneliness; then she had plunged anew into the flood of affairs, and had come out, as from a cold bath, braced and tingling. Round went the wheels of Wanless. The house was new-papered, painted, carpeted; every month brought new wonders to the garden. Under Glyde's tuition, seeing with his eyes, watching with his tensity of vision, she had come closely into Nature's arms. Perhaps she was unwise with the young man: the fact is she never stopped to consider him. She liked him and his queer, secret, passionate ways. She took a royal line of her own. She required much of him, and if he made much of it, she didn't know it. She dreamed no harm to him or to herself. Her absorption in the business of the moment, or the needs, was so manifest that not even the maids, who saw her frequently with the youth, could have thought harm for a second. It was just Miss Percival all over—as "keen as mustard." Perhaps it was as much under Glyde's fostering as any other nurture that she came, during that year alone, to love the earth so well that she could appraise the worth of human love. I don't know. It was a critical year for her.

As she was anything but a fool, there's no doubt that she came, before the end of that year, to know what was the matter with Glyde. She had had experience—of herself and another—and he was utterly incapable of concealing his feelings. Of course she knew what was the matter with him, and was tenderly and quietly amused. She approached him gradually, let herself play elder sister, and let him play what he chose, within severe limits, never overstepped by him, never unwatched by herself. He was a passionate, sensitive, inarticulate creature, narrow-faced, sharp-eyed, scowling and thin. He always looked cold, mostly angry, and never seemed contented, even when his plants flowered themselves to death to please him.

A woman, any woman, knowing that a man covets her possession, stores her knowledge, exults in it in secret. It is a fund, a store against lean years or wry ones. You can see it throned sedately in her eyes, when she is with him, however much she may feel his absurdity or presumption. So it was with Sanchia. She was fully conscious of Struan's preposterous state, strictly the elder sister, never the patroness, for were they not bond- slaves both? She patronised nobody at Wanless, yet, with a steady eye for distances, kept a perfect length, varying with each oncomer. With Mr. Menzies, lord of the gardens, so far on she came; with Frodsham, master of horse and hound, so far; with the engineer so far; with Minnie nearer; nearest of all with Mrs. Benson: her attitude to the stout woman was that of favourite pupil to a family governess of immemorial service. She could wheedle Mrs. Benson, and often did. The elder sister attitude was kept for young Glyde; she admonished, scolded, preached to him high doctrine of duty and honour; there was something benignant, a sort of pitying care shed from above. To him she may have been like Cynthia, stooping to the dreamer on Latmos. Whether she knew that, she must have known a good deal. She knew, for instance, that he kept vigil; for she had met him at night, as you have been told. She knew where to find him. Nothing had ever passed between them, of course, of her relations with the Master. I don't think that she was aware of his sentry-go under the windows—first under Ingram's, then under hers. I am sure she was not, or he would have heard of it in plain terms, have seen her eyes grow hard, and her mouth stretch to bleakness. She was capable of royal, cold rage when she was offended. But that he hated Ingram must have been plain to her.

And now, as she stood at gaze, lonely and pensive by the black pond, she saw that it was over, her busy life. She was at the end of her tether, must lose her power and the sense of it. She was to begin the world again, starting with her fifty pounds, and without that which had made it a pride before. With a little shiver of self-pity, a half-sigh and a tightening of the lips, she accepted her fate. That was her way.

She regretted nothing, asked neither for mercy nor allowance. What she had done, she had done; if it was to be done with, she could not help that; she must go her way. Never for an instant did it enter her head that she could marry Ingram. Nothing that he had urged, or Chevenix counselled, made the smallest difference to her. She did not love Nevile any more; he was horrible to her: enough of that. Whatever her fate was to be, she would accept it: she chose it so. Without reasoning it out, that was final for her. She had always had sic volo for her final cause. Stet pro ratione voluntas. Marriage, even nominal marriage, with Nevile was the accursed thing: none of it. And why? Because she chose it so.

This was very sublime. I sing, or Mr. Senhouse sings, a Goddess in her own Right. That is to be observed, or we fail. Persons have existed, and do yet exist, who are law unto themselves, deliberate choosers of their fate, deliberate allies of Atropos with the shears, who go what seems to us, shivering on the brink of things, a bright and bloodstained way, and furrow deeply into life, because it must be so, because so they will have it. Great ones of time, a Caesar or so, a Catherine, a Buonaparte, come handily to mind, who, wreaking countless woes, wrought evenly their own. And since greatness is a relative term, and time an abstraction of the mind, in their company, says Mr. Senhouse, was Sanchia Percival, and in her blue-clouded eyes was to be discerned seated, like a captain, foreknowledge of her own fate, and will to choose it. But, as for Mr. Senhouse himself, at this time of envisaging of ways I don't believe that he entered her head. Small blame to her, either, seeing that the man, having renounced her, or failed of her, as you please, had taken up with his Mrs. Germain, and found her to be a Fact, as I have related.

But to do wrong or right, the prerogative of choice: she arrogated that. So, I think, if the sister of the Far-Darter had ever stepped aside from the path of her lonely delight—as some have it she did on Latmos—she would have done it without shame. It would have been her pleasure and her choice; she would never change countenance or have to breast the flood of colour. It must be hers to take up or discard an empire, or a Nevile Ingram of Wanless Hall. So, in her degree, did Sanchia Percival—of the stuff of goddesses.



IX

Mrs. Devereux having departed as impressively as might be expected of a lady with a sense of injury, there was little for Chevenix to do but to follow her; for whereas Mrs. Devereux considered herself badly treated by both parties in the house, the young man had to own that he had quarrelled with his host. "I laid for Nevile," he told Sanchia, "and he don't let me forget it, either. He don't like commentators on his text—never did. So he's making Wanless too hot to hold me."

Sanchia, with rueful eyes, feared that this was her fault. "I'm very sorry," she said. "On all accounts I'm very sorry. I shall miss you. It was nice to see you again."

"See me again," cried Chevenix, "as soon as you please; but not here— unless you feel you can make up your mind to settle down, as we call it."

She shook her head. "I don't think I can. I think it might be wicked—as things are."

Chevenix raised his eyebrows. "That's you all over, my dear. Other people's Right is your Wrong. Why question the decrees of the police? They tell you that you may do what you please when you're married, but not before. But you won't have that. Of course, if you can't swallow Nevile, you can't—and there's an end of it. Only," he added, "there must be an end of it. You're in a false position—now."

"According to you I always was," said the candid young lady, and made him change countenance. She shirked nothing.

"I did think so once; we all did, you know. Even your bare-footed friend, What's-his-name—"

"Mr. Senhouse."

"Beg your pardon. Mr. Senhouse, of course. Well, he didn't take it sitting down, so to speak. Did he now?"

She considered. Her eyes grew gentle over the remembrances which this name always called up. "He knew that I was right. Oh, yes. I'm sure of that. But he was frightened. He lost his nerve because—"

"Because it was you, my dear," said Chevenix briskly. She owned soberly to that.

"I shall see your people when I get to town," he told her. "I shall make a point of seeing Vicky and your governor. And if I could drop in upon Senhouse, by George, I'd risk it. You don't know where he is just now, I suppose?"

"He was in the Black Forest when I last heard from him," she said, "and was going to the Caucasus—to collect plants. That was a long time ago. Three years, I should think. He doesn't write now. He's married, you know."

"Married?" he repeated, with open eyes. "I never knew that."

"He married a Mrs. Germain—a widow."

Chevenix stared, then slapped his leg. "Then that accounts for it! Didn't I tell you I met him when I went out to Brindisi to see Nevile off—met him on a steamer, with a pretty woman? That was Mrs. G.—his pretty woman. Good Lord, how rum!" He laughed, staring. Then, "What on earth did he do that for? She's not his sort. And I gave myself away—confoundedly— to each of 'em in turn. You'll never believe it, but I told him that she'd always been in love with Tristram Duplessis, and then I gave her to understand what had been the matter with old Senhouse." He exploded, then grew mighty serious. "That's rather a bore. I was counting on him, you know. I thought you might want him."

Sanchia made no reply. About the corners of her mouth there lurked the hint of a smile, which her wistful eyes belied. Chevenix watched her, but could make nothing of it.

"He was a rum 'un," he continued. "The first time I saw him after you came up here, was when I ran against him by chance in Norfolk somewhere. Spread abroad he was—in flannels—all his things strewn about. He had a little fire going, and a little pot on it. Doing a job of tinkering, he said, to oblige a lady. There was the lady, too, if you please, sitting on a bank, smoking a clay. She had a beard, and an old wide-awake on her head. Senhouse introduced me, I remember. He told me he was on his way North— Wastwater, I think. A planting job up there—or something. Rum chap that! Oh, one of the very rummest! He asked me a lot about you. I didn't know how much he knew, so I went very pussy. The chap was as sharp as a needle. Spotted me. He said, 'My dear sir, I don't ask you what she is doing or where she is. I ask you if she is well.' Then I told him a lot—about you, and Nevile, and all this business. I let out, I tell you. I was fairly deep in the thing—you know that I felt pretty badly, because it was my fault that you ever knew Nevile at all. Don't you suppose I've ever forgiven myself that, Sancie; never you suppose it. No, no."

He was much moved. She, by a sudden impulse, put out her hand to him. He wrung it, and said, "Thanks, Sancie; thanks, my dear."

After a wrestling bout, he went on: "Do you know what that fellow said to me? I should like you to know it. Mind you, he was yours, body and soul, then—whatever he may be now. I think he's yours still, for that matter— but then! He never concealed it—so far as I know—from anybody. Now, listen to me. He heard me out, never said anything till I'd done. Then he looked out over the marshes into the weather, and he said, "No harm ever came to a good woman. I shall see her again, crowned. Now, what do you say to that? Queer, isn't it?"

Sanchia blushed deeply and bent her head. Chevenix marked her confusion, and varied his tone to suit the case. He became practical. "Now, what'll he say about this new state of affairs, do you suppose?"

She lifted her head. "He will think me in the right."

Chevenix shrugged. "There's going to be trouble," he believed. "There's bound to be, just on that account. Nevile can be a brute when he's in the wrong, and knows it."

Sanchia squared her jaw for trouble.

"He wants you back, you know, awfully—because you won't come. And the more he wants you the less he'll say so. That's the pride of the cobbler's dog. If he's uncomfortable, he'll scratch until he's comfortable again. And he says, "If you can't get the best take the next best"; and runs about with Mrs. Wilmot at his heels, and is bored all the time. That's Nevile all over." His eyes grew rounder. "You'll have to go, you know."

She admitted that. "Yes, I must." Then she sighed. "I don't want to go. There's such a lot to be done here."

"Yes, yes, my dear," said Chevenix with some irritation. "No doubt there is. But you can't afford it."

He stammered out his next. "I should like to say, Sancie, that there's nobody on earth I respect—for whom I have more respect than for you. I don't understand your point of view—don't pretend to. But I know a fine thing when I see it. I'm not much of a chap, I know—no brains, and all that—simple, rotten chap, I know; but if we're not going to be friends I shall be unhappy."

"We are, I hope," she said, smiling kindly at him. She gave him her hand.

"Right, Sancie. Look here," he said sternly. "I'll punch Nevile's head for you, if you like."

"I shouldn't like it at all," she assured him.

"We're old acquaintance, you know. He'd take it from me better than from anyone else—like Senhouse."

"Mr. Senhouse would never touch him," she was sure. He dropped in Chevenix's estimation immediately.

"Quaker, eh? I didn't know that."

Sanchia explained. "He can't be changed in those sort of things. He would only use force against wild beasts."

"Well," cried Chevenix, "what do you think Nevile's going to be? My advice to you is to get out as soon as you can. And when you're in town, command me." They parted firm friends.

Mrs. Wilmot remained, against her inmost judgment, against her maid Purcell's clear advice, for one more day. The night of Chevenix's departure she was there, and on the morrow was to be conveyed to the Trenchards', across the county. Wanless had her steadily in its score pair of eyes for twenty-four hours, as Purcell, her maid, had foreseen. "You are doing a strange thing, ma'am, permit me to say." Purcell was an elderly spinster, who only required her own permission to say what she pleased. "You will be watched and reported. I suppose I am not in the servants' hall for nothing." Mrs. Wilmot said feebly that she supposed she was there for meals. Purcell stiffened her wiry neck. "Meals, ma'am! In the best houses there's a second table. The butler may be there, and perhaps the valet. The lady's maid, of course. But where there's no lady, one may put up with the cook, though the cook in such houses is rarely a female. But the housekeeper here! A Miss Percival! Dines alone—or is said to—and the cook sits at the head of our table. This is no house for you, ma'am."

The lady gave a little cry and hoisted a white shoulder. "Oh, Purcell, you are hurting me dreadfully. Do be more gentle with me. You are tearing my hair out by handfuls. What can it matter to you where Miss—where the housekeeper dines?"

"Ho," said Purcell, "little or nothing—to me, ma'am. I cannot help my thoughts. But I keep them to myself. Not one word in this house— downstairs—of Miss Percival. Not one word. They keep their mouths shut, I promise you, and their eyes open. But what you will, you will. As for Mr. Ingram, the less I say the better."

"Much the better," said Mrs. Wilmot, fretfully wriggling under the comb.

That fine afternoon—April budding into May—this lady listened to Ingram in the garden. Of all sounds in the world the sweetest music for her ear was made by a man's voice embroidering the theme—"You are lovely, you are cruel, I die." Ingram's descant on the golden phrase was querulous, after his manner. He took his lover's smarts, as one must suppose them, hardly. As thus: "You are lovely—but what's that to me, if I can't touch you? You sting my eyes, you inflame, you wound—or I think you do; here am I, tied by the leg to a dead woman—for dead to me she is, the she-cat Sanchia—looking at you because I can't help myself. You are soft and lax, you purr when I stroke you; I could make a pet of you. Was ever a man of property and station in such a case?"

"You are cruel—because, though I could put out my hand and take you, yet you expect me to do it. That's all over, for me. I've done that sort of thing—Sanchia knows. Now I must trouble you to advance. I'm sick of life on these terms: you could make life worth living. I must really trouble you: sorry to seem languid, but I am languid. You, with your fine sensibilities, ought to be the first to feel that; but no: you wait, looking exquisite, with eyes like blue-black water, and a mouth, a mouth like a flower. You soft gossamer beauty, I could crush you where you hover; but you won't come and be crushed. Certainly, you are cruel."

I die. He avoided that. It was absurd. She thought for one moment that he hinted it when he said, shrugging off his ranges of hot-house—"Good of their kind, I fancy. But what good are they to me—a solitary beggar? I never go into 'em, you know. I thought I should take an interest when I had 'em put up. It looked like it—But now! who cares whether I go into 'em or not? Who cares whether I live or die?" There had been a pathetic ring there.

She had murmured a gentle rebuke; her eyes had brimmed, reproaching him. It was then that he had taken her hand, at the going-out from the fig- house. "Ruth," he had said, "my kind, pretty Ruth." Then he stooped his head and kissed her. Through three pairs of doors Glyde, in the peachhouse, had seen the act, and paused in his spraying. It was over in a minute. The pair strolled away and passed out of the walled-garden. Glyde, who had turned very white, compressed his lips and went back to his work— like a machine. Presently a light step made him start, look guardedly up, watch and wait. Sanchia, bare-headed, fresh and debonnaire, came in, like a stream of west wind. Her eyes beamed her health and pleasure. "Oh, Struan," she said, "do come and see the Susianas. They are on the very point of opening. Do come. There's nobody about. They've gone down to the river."

He could not face her, knowing what he knew. But he could not resist her either. "I'll come," he said, and followed her.

She went gaily and eagerly. "You've never done so well with them as this year. I counted a dozen. Huge! I felt rather miserable this morning; I've been worried rather. I thought I would just see what they would do for me. They made me feel ashamed of myself. Their strength, their contentedness— just to grow, and be strong and well! Nothing more. What else ought we to want? Food—the sun—strength to grow! Isn't that enough?" She was echoing Senhouse here, and felt an added glow to remember it. He had been much in her thoughts since her last exchange with Chevenix.

Out of the warm brown soil, sheltered by the eaves, the iris clump made a brave show. Its leaves like grey scimitars, its great flower-stems like spears. Stiffly they reared, erect, smooth, well-rounded, and each was crowned with the swollen bud of promise. She displayed them proudly, she counted them, made him check her counting. She glowed over them, fascinated by their virile pride. Struan watched her more than her treasures. He was pale still, and bit his lip; had nothing to say.

She knelt and took one of the great stalks tenderly in her hand. A kind of rapture, was upon her, a mystic's ecstasy. She passed her closed hand up and down, feeling the stiff smoothness: she clasped and pressed the bursting bud. "Feel it, Struan, feel it," she said. "It's alive." He turned, shaking, away.

"They say," she went on, caressing the bud, "that this is really the Lily of the Annunciation. It's a symbol, I've read. Gabriel held one in his hand when he stood before Our Lady. Did you know that?"

Glyde broke out. "Don't. Don't. Come away. I must speak to you—quickly— if I dare. Come away from here."

He spoke fiercely, meaning what he said. Grave, sobered, she rose and followed him. He drew her after him to the yew-tree walk, to the enclosure at its end, where the leaden Faun capered and grinned. There he faced her.

"You must leave this place," he said shortly. She looked to the ground.

"I know," she replied in a low voice.

"Every moment you stop here insults you, puts shame upon you. Shame! And on you! It's not bearable. It's not to be suffered. I'll not suffer it for one."

At this she lifted her head and reproved him by a look. It was mild, queenly mild, but not weak. Remote from him and his world, it said, "I can't hear you."

He understood it so. "Who says I may not speak to you? Who else is to speak to you if I don't? How can you bear yourself and speak nothing? Is it natural?" He seemed on the point of angry tears; with a gesture infinitely kind she bore with him. Her hand just touched his arm.

"Dear Struan," she said, "I know how nice you mean to be to me; I am very grateful to you. Of course I am going away. I have brought everything on myself, and must bear the consequences by myself. But I have been happy here, lately, and shall be most unhappy to go. I have so many friends here." Then, after looking at him, reflecting, she added, "Of course I know that you care."

"Care!" he cried out, scornfully. "Do you think that I've watched you, in and out, for three years without caring? Do you think that I have schooled myself to put up with—with him—without caring? And when I thought that he was coming back here to—to prove himself an honourable man—I thanked the Lord. Yes, I did that. I was ready to go when I knew he was coming back for that. I told you I would go—and I meant it. I should have cut my heart out and left it here, and gone away—clean away, glorifying and praising God. But—oh, it's hideous, hideous! You are discarded—you! Cast off—you! Peerless as you are—you! Oh, my Saviour, what's this?" He broke away, and sobbed. He dashed his arm over his eyes in a rage with himself. She was very gentle with him now.

She put her hand on his shoulder, and though he shook it off, put it there again. "You hurt me, Struan, really. If you are my friend, you shouldn't doubt me. I don't feel about it as you do, you know."

He lifted his head at the challenge. "Then you should," he said. "Dog that he is. He's insulting you. He had better have died than do as he does. Damn him, he shall pay for it." She shook her head, smiling rather dismally.

"I can't talk to you any more if you don't understand why I can't talk to you," she said. "There are things which friends cannot do for each other— which we have to do alone."

The lad gasped and made a step towards her. He could not control himself— he shook.

"Not you—never you. I'll die for you—and you know it." She looked at him full, then left him.

Mrs. Wilmot stayed for the better part of a week longer than she had intended, and then, perceiving by subtle but unmistakeable signs that she would wiselier go, went. To Wanless that had been a week of strain; the air was charged with trouble. One could not have pointed to anything—it was beyond the range of weathercock or glass; but everybody felt it. Sanchia, graver than she was wont to be, pushed herself sharply from duty to duty, and avoided sympathy by a dry manner. Or she was obtuse, affecting a foolish interest in trivialities. She never went into the garden, and saw nothing of young Glyde. Mrs. Benson, glooming thunder from her brows, Minnie with scare in her russet eyes turned Purcell's feasts into fasts. The wiry tire-woman, to do her justice, was as uncomfortable as any of them; but loyalty spurred her to feats of endurance undreamed of by any but servants. They, in a world of their own, where speech is rare, and skins rarer, where everything must be done by glances and hints, are perhaps more aware of themselves than any other children of men. They are for ever judging their betters; how shall they escape from judgment of each other? Judge not, says the Book; but if you pry for vice, what can you be yourself but a prying-ground? So Purcell agonised, and felt her very vitals under the hooks. The case was past praying for. She suffered and was dumb.

At last the delicate beauty, seeing Adonis faint in the chase—for Ingram, as a lover, was languid and gloomy—was helped into her lacy draperies, helped into the carriage, driven to the station; and Ingram, on horseback, rode by her side. He helped her into the train, stored her with magazines, kissed her mouth, revolted at her tears, and returned sulkily, with hard- rimmed eyes, at a foot's pace to his halls. Midway of the carriage-drive, instinctively, he tightened the rein; for Glyde stepped out of the undergrowth some ten paces ahead, and stood, waiting for him. He was dressed, not for the garden (in shirt-sleeves and baize), but in his blacks, and had a soft felt hat on his head, basin-shaped, with the brim over his eyes. "Now what the devil does that chap want, play-acting here?" was Ingram's enquiry of the Universe.

Glyde, as the horse drew level, came within touch of his flank, and told Ingram that he wished to speak with him.

"Eh?" said Ingram; and then, "oh, what a nuisance." He felt himself injured. "Well, what is it, Glyde?"

Glyde said, "I wish to give notice, if you please." The manner of address was curt and offensive.

"Oh, do you?" Ingram said. "Well, then, you had better do it in the proper way. See Miss Percival about it, will you?" He pressed his knees in as if to continue his way.

Glyde, however, stood by the horse's head.

"I have seen Miss Percival about it, Mr. Ingram," he said. "I saw her—a week ago. And now I've got to see you about it."

Ingram looked at him sharply—a sudden stiffening of the spine; spine stiff and eyes sharp, acting together. What he saw made him the more alert.

"What on earth do you mean?" he asked.

"I'll tell you," said Glyde. "I'm free of your service from this minute, so I'll tell you. I say that you are a damned scoundrel, and that you know it." A concentration of many grudges, kept very still, as by white heat, characterised this remarkable speech.

Ingram blenched. "By George, my man," he said, "you'll have to make that good."

Glyde said, "And I will. You have behaved, you are behaving, like a dog in this house; and you're to take a dog's wages."

Ingram jumped in his saddle, rose in his stirrups. "By God," he said, "by God—" but he said no more.

Glyde sprang up at him where he stood above his saddle, unseated—sprang up at him, took him by the shoulders and then dropping, pulled him off his horse. The freed animal, startled, kicked out, shook his head, and cantered gaily homewards. Glyde, having Ingram on the ground, took him by the collar of his jacket and belaboured him with his open hand. He cuffed him like a schoolboy, boxed him about the ears and face, shook him well, and then cast him into the young bracken of his own avenue. "There's for you, seducer," he said; and that done, he walked steadily up the road towards the lodge gates.

Ingram, on his feet, in a rage which was the most manly he could have suffered, went after him at a run, and caught him up. "You blackguard," he said, and panted. "Turn and fight with me."

Glyde stopped. "I'll not fight with you, Ingram," was his measured reply, "because I've that in me which would kill you. No mercy for you there. You can go as you please; you can send me to gaol or not; but you shan't get me hanged. I've something to do with my life—as much of it as you leave me; and I want it." As Ingram glared at him, crimson now, with bulging eyes and teeth at lips, the other went on. "I'm going no farther to-day than my lodging. Your police will find me there when you send 'em. I shan't fight them, because I can't afford it; and I shan't fight you, dog that you are, for the same reason." Ingram cursed, and sprang at him, but Glyde stiffened his arm and held him off. Master was no match for man, and felt no better for the knowledge of that. It did serve, however, to bring him to his senses. He saw that he was making an ass of himself.

"You'll hear more of this," he said, and turned and walked rapidly back to the house.

Mortification inflamed his rage; his furious walking blew into it a sense of incurable injury. Injury, shocked pride, and animal heat altogether made a devil of him. He went directly to his own room, and rang the bell. "Send Miss Percival to me," he told Minnie, "at once."

Then he waited for her, with a face like a rat.



XI

She might have gathered warning from Minnie's panting summons, but had been busy over her accounts and had noticed nothing amiss.

"He wants you, Miss Percival! Don't go!" She had scarcely heard. She said, "Who wants me? Mr. Ingram? I'll come;" and though the maid stammered, "I wouldn't, oh, I wouldn't," had gone.

The face he showed her from his bureau, where he sat huddled over a litter of papers, prepared her instantly for crisis; snarling, white and wicked, yet it had tragedy in it—as if he knew that he had himself to reckon with beyond all.

For some time he seemed not to see her, though he looked at her. He sat glooming, like a man dumb in high fever, working his lower jaw, screwing and unscrewing his hands. Afterwards she believed that he had been groping for the cruellest thing he could say, and was goaded into what he did say by the sense that he could find nothing.

"So that was your work? Your choice way! To set one of my own servants to club me."

She looked at him blankly; but her face glowed with sudden fire. "I haven't the least notion what you mean. Who has clubbed you?"

His eyes flickered. "Glyde. Your friend. You seek your champions all about, it seems. You make things snug for yourself. It's master or man with you—it's all one."

He spluttered his venom broadcast. She held up her head. "Are you insulting me?" He wheeled round full in his chair.

"Is it possible to insult you?"

At that she lowered her panoply of fire, and grew still. "I see that you are. I can't allow that."

He foamed. "Bullies in your hire. Now I see what Bill Chevenix was after. And Glyde-faugh! who else?"

She watched him steadily without fear or disgust. His words held no meaning for her. "I think you must be mad," she said. "It will be better if I go."

He scoffed at her. "Better! You are right." He rose in his place. "You'll go to-day."

Sanchia regarded him deeply, almost curiously, as if he had been a plant, interesting for its rarity.

"Naturally," she said, and left him in his staring fit.

The ordered little realm of Wanless went on its diurnal course. Luncheon was served at two by a trembling parlour-maid; the coffee was set in the hall, the cigar-box, the spirit-flame. Frodsham came for orders, Mr. Menzies reported Glyde absent without leave. These things were done by rote: yet the whole house knew the facts. Sanchia, dining in the middle of the day, plied her knife and fork with composure. It was her way to face facts once for all, tussle with them, gain or lose, and be done with them. She had been angry with Glyde, but now could think of him as "poor Struan," Punchinello in a rustic comedy. Of Ingram, deliberately, she thought nothing. It had been necessary to survey her feelings of eight years ago, to make a sour face of disgust over them, before she could shake them out of her head. Now they were gone, and he with them: the world, with May beginning, was too sweet a place for such vermin to fester in. She had swept and ridded herself, rinsed her mouth with pure water, and now could sit to her dinner and review her plans.

But the storm burst over Wanless, at half-past four. Minnie came into her room, breathless, Mrs. Benson stertorous in her traces.

Minnie wailed, "Oh, Miss, oh, Miss Sanchia, oh, dear Miss Percival, what's going to become of us? Struan's beaten the Master, and the Sergeant's here!"

"Apes and tigers"—Mrs. Benson tolled like a bell. "Apes and tigers. What says the Book?"

Sanchia let them run, so the distorted tale was pieced together. At a quarter to twelve—it must have been that, because Emma heard the stableclock chime the half-hour—Struan was seen in his blacks. He came out of the wood-house, an ashplant in his hand. "Apes and tigers, apes and tigers," from Mrs. Benson—his face was dreadful to see. Who said so? Who saw him? Not Minnie, for sure. It was Bella the laundrymaid—she saw him from the window, and had a turn. The window was open. "Why, Struan," she said—but he told her to shut mouth and eyes. "The less you see, and know," he said, "the better for you." Poor Struan, with his tragedy airs! Bella told that to Minnie, and that she would never forget it to her dying day. It turned the beer in her stomach, she said—and now she was lying down. As he went out of the yard, a cloud came over the sun, and Bella felt the chill. She had the goose-flesh all up her back. That, they say, betokens a person walking over your grave. Somewhere in England we all have our grave-ground lying green under turf. It awaits the spade and the hour. In the morning it is green and groweth up—this was Mrs. Benson's piece, but Minnie had the rest of the stage.

The saddle-horse came flinging into the yard at one o'clock—no later. That's certain, because Frodsham was at his after-dinner pipe—or should have been: instead of which he came running in after him. Just about that time, or maybe a little before, Mr. Menzies had been asking for Struan? Where was he? Did anyone ever see such a wastrel? No man's account, he called him. Mrs. Benson tolled her apes and tigers all.

It was Minnie had seen the Master when the bell pealed. She had gone with her heart in her mouth—and oh, his collar and tie! His red ear! She had never seen anything like his face, and never must again on this side of the tomb. Wicked, oh, wicked! He showed his teeth. His face was as white as a clout. His voice was like a nutmeg-grater. "Miss Percival—here—at once." It was all he said. She did her bidding, for servants must—but her heart bled for Miss Percival, and she felt like fainting at any minute when she waited at luncheon. He drank brandy—jerked his head towards the sideboard when he wanted more. Never said a word. And how he ate, wrenching at his food! Fit to choke him. How she had lived through the luncheon she didn't know at all. But that Struan, that quiet in an ordinary way, should have dared—with a stick in his violent hand! And the Sergeant ready for his warrant—stiff in the hall.

"A villain has got his deserts," boomed Mrs. Benson. "My dear, you're going, it seems, and I with you. This is no place for a young lady—no, nor ever was, God be good! I know my place, to all parties; but I know that better—and now it's come upon us like a thief in the night. Well, well, well—my pretty young lady! Old women must put up with what they get, we all know—but not murderers in gentlemen's seats: no, nor beastly doings in and out of doors. I shall go, my dear, when you go—ah, me! When the wicked man ... but he's got his deserts. What! a widower—with duty and pleasure before him, combined for once, and no thanks to him!—to dally with a French doll—movable eyes and separate teeth and all—when he might have gone on his knees to a splendid young lady! And I'd have kept him there to say his prayers, which he's never done before, not since his mother died, poor old gentlewoman, worn out by the gnashings of a tiresome, God-Almighty, wicked old man, and a slip of sin who nothing was too good for. Not in this world, no! But it will be made up to him in the next, by the unquenchable worm—as he'll find out when he tries his 'down, dog' tricks; his 'drop that, will you?' None of that down there in the fire. What says the Book? My dear, my dear," and she took the girl in her arms with a fine look about her of Niobe amid arrows, "I've a bosom for your head and a roof to shelter us both, and we'll see what we shall see. There's castles and towers for the great oneyers and their minions; but mine is in the Fulham Road, my dear; my own property out of a building society that does business for the widow and the orphan—makes it their special line, as I understand, and have treated me squarely throughout— that I will say. Yes, yes, and I'll tend you fairly, will Sarah Benson, widowed mother of a graceless son, who can feel for her poor dead mistress, mother of a worse. My lamb, you shall want for nothing."

Fast in a good pair of arms, Sanchia snuggled and smiled. She patted Mrs. Benson's cheek, and put up her lips to her. Minnie, like a thawing icepack, ran rivers of water.

"You are good to me," she said; "you are sweet to me. I don't mind anything when I can be sure of such friends. But you mustn't leave, you know. Really, you ought not. I shan't forget you, be sure of that, whether you stay or go."

Mrs. Benson crooned over her, "Oh, you're not one that forgets, my precious, with your golden heart. And there's more than me will find it out." She wiped her spectacles, breathing on the glasses, and Sanchia shook out her plumage, escaped from the nest. Ingram, without knocking, came into the room.

His rage was now cold and keen. He took in conspiracy with one glance at the three.

He spoke to Minnie. "I have been ringing for twenty minutes. The brandy in my room, and some soda-water. At once." Scared Minnie fled. Then he turned half to Sanchia, but didn't look at her.

"I understood you were leaving this afternoon. You had better order a fly. There's the telephone." He held out an envelope. "I think that you will find this correct."

Sanchia was at her bureau. "Put it on the table, please," she said, without turning; and while Ingram hovered, Mrs. Benson heaving like the sea, gathered into a combing wave and, breaking, swallowed him up.

"Money-ah! You come with money to a lady of the land! Offer me money, Mr. Ingram, if you dare. Your bread I've eaten, having baked it, and your father's bread, and not choked yet, though each mouthful might be my last. By every word out of the mouth of God, says the Book; and what shall He say of you? I've watched for this, I've seen it coming. You keep long accounts, but there's One keeps longer—and in His head, as we read. To breaking mother's heart so much, to scandal of matrimony so much—and to perjury and dirty devices, wicked dalliance, so much. When she came here— this fine young lady, so fresh and sweet—I wailed. I shook my fist at you, Mr. Ingram; 'I know what this means,' I said, 'a false tongue and a young heart.' And I waited, I tell you—for I could do nothing else. She could have come to me at any hour of any day and welcome; and I'd have told her, 'He's bad—he's rotten at the heart. He'll tire of you—neglect you—trick you—and cast you out.' But she was too proud for that; she bore it all, and not a word. And she did your work as never before, not in your time, nor your father's time; and made friends of the poor, and kept her place—sweetly and smoothly it was done. And you on your travels with foreign women—"

Ingram now emerged from the flood. "Are you mad?" he said. A dreadful calm came over Mrs. Benson, succeeding the tempest.

"'I am not mad, most noble Festus,'" she said; "but I am mother of a graceless son, and will not be cook to another. I leave your service from this hour. Your dinner is a-making, and Emma is a steady worker." She turned to Sanchia. "The best vegetable-hand I ever had under me, Miss Percival, and I've had a score." One further cut at Ingram she allowed herself. "I would not take a penny piece of your money now, not to save my darling from the lions."

"You won't get it, you know," said Ingram. "But you've had lots of 'em." She braved that truth.

"And earned them, Mr. Ingram, as you know, better than I do."

Ingram, ignoring her, observed quietly to Sanchia, "The sooner the better, I think."

That was the manner of his farewell.

It was not the way she would have chosen to leave; but she reasoned with herself, as she packed her belongings, that it was probably the best way. It gave no time and little inclination for sentiment. Now, it was almost certain that had a term been ahead of her, whose end could be felt nearing, there would have been good-byes, last interviews, and last interviews but one, which are apt to be more poignant than those of the last moment of all. Even as it was there were threatenings of emotion. Wanless was stirred deeply. Mr. Menzies brought in a nosegay, and grasped her hand. "You will be sorely missed here, Miss Percival, sorely missed. Less said's the sooner mended, but you're a true young lady, greatly to be deplored."

"Good-bye, Mr. Menzies," she had said, "and thank you a thousand times for—"

"They are from my own plot of ground," said the grizzled gardener, and looked away. She had his tulips in her hand, and now buried her face in them.

"Then I love them all the better," she told him; and put in a word for Struan. "Be kind to him when you see him again—please do."

Mr. Menzies became far-sighted. He had very blue eyes. "Ahem!" he said, in his Scotch fashion. "He'll not be here again, I doubt. He'll be away, the headstrong young man." But he warmed to it. "Ay," he said, "ay, Miss Percival. For your sake I'll listen to what he has to tell me." She felt that she must be content with that. Each servant in degree must be dealt with, and Minnie comforted in her place. She was all for going that night; but had a mother and four sisters in Doncaster—all at home. Would Miss Sanchia forgive her, and accept of this Prayer-book? Miss Sanchia would; kissed her, and did.

In the carriage drive she told Mrs. Benson of her immediate intention. "I must say good-bye to Struan. We will stop at his cottage on the way. There's plenty of time."

Mrs. Benson was strongly against it, but rather showed her mind than declared it. Mischief enough had been done through that youth—and in him, she doubted. Better let him alone. Are you to countenance violent hands? Raised against them in authority? Then where's authority? Where are Principalities and Powers? Much as she contemned Ingram, she was on his side against Struan any day. On the other hand, Sanchia was, in a manner, her guest, and could not be spoken to plainly about it. She could only shake her head.

"He's better alone, Miss Percival, alone with his devil. While the fit's on him, let 'em fight it out. And what can he be—to the likes of you?"

"He's always been a friend of mine," she said. "He's been very foolish, very wicked; he had no business whatever to do as he did—to put me in the wrong. I'm angry with him, and he will see that I am. But—" Mrs. Benson knew the force of that "but." It had brought the young lady to Wanless.

Yet Mrs. Benson might have triumphed if she would. Sanchia, at the cottage door, was met by the anxious tenant of it with whom Struan lodged. "He's not here, Miss," she was told, and then, "oh, Miss, they've took him away. The Sergeant's come for him and took him. And we hear—" There had been no stopping her, but by Sanchia's way.

She walked into the cottage and put up her veil. She showed a pale, sad face. "How dreadful! I must write a note. Will you let me write here, and leave it with you—to give him when he comes?"

She wrote in pencil, "My dear Struan, I am very sorry. You made me angry, but I'm sorry now. I came to say Good-bye, as I am going away. Mrs. Benson is with me. See Mr. Menzies when you can. He has promised to help you, and, of course, I will too, if I can.—Yours always, S. J. P." With the fold of the envelope to her tongue she paused, reflective. Then she took the note out again, read it over, and ran her pencil through the last two letters of her signature. And taking two Parma violets from the knot at her breast—a recent gift from Wanless—she put them within the paper. Thus she did deliberately—as the Fates would have her. Addressing "Mr. S. Clyde, by Mrs. Broughton," she gave her letter in charge. "Be sure to give it him when he comes back," she said. Then she and her protector were driven to the station.

There was a full bench, a crowded court when the accused was brought in. The hush that preceded him and the buzz when he stood up made Ingram set his teeth. The reporters, with racing pen, cleared the ground. Thus the world might read of "The Squire of Wanless, every inch a soldier," in one journal, and of "Nevile Ingram, Esquire, of Wanless Hall," in another. There are no politics in police reports, but broadcloth is respectable. The prisoner was described as "Struan Glyde, 23, a sickly-looking young man, who exhibited symptoms of nervousness." It was allowed that he spoke "firmly but respectfully to the Bench," but, on the other hand, "to the complainant he showed considerable animosity, and more than once had to be reproved by the Chairman." The proceedings were short. "At the close there was a demonstration, which was immediately checked by the police."

Glyde, in fact, was revealed as a narrow-faced young man, slim and olive- complexioned, having light, intent eyes, and very long eyelashes. Nervous he undoubtedly was; he twitched, he blinked, he swallowed. He looked effeminate to one judge. Another said of him to his neighbour, "As hardy as a hawk." A newspaper called him "puny," a rival "as tough as whip- cord." It depended upon your reading of him—whether by externals or not. He had a quiet, fierce way with him, a glare, the look of a bird of prey. He was very self-possessed. All the papers observed it.

Ingram, playing his privilege to the last ounce, told his tale to his brother-magistrates, shortly, but with considerable effect. He had had occasion to dismiss a servant, and the prisoner had taken upon himself to resent it. Yes—in answer to a question—a female servant. Prisoner had attacked him in his own carriage-drive, had pulled him out of the saddle before he knew what he was about, and had beaten him while on the ground. He had no witnesses. There had been none. His voice, as he chopped out his phrases, was dry, his tone impartial. He took no sides, stated the facts. He spoke to the Chairman—even when he replied to the question which made him, for a moment, take breath; and he never once looked at the accused.

The Bench consulted together. Old Mr. Bazalguet, the Chairman, leaned far back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling, while two younger justices whispered to each other across his portly person, peering sideways at Ingram, who showed them his smooth head and folded arms. Colonel Vero, the fourth of the tribunal, was drawing angels on his blotting paper. Then they settled themselves, one of them with a shrug, and Sergeant Weeks told of the arrest. Accused had declined to make a statement, but had spoken certain words to his landlady, one Mrs. Broughton, to the effect that what was to come was "nothing" to what had been done. He had left in her charge papers, which the Sergeant had afterwards examined, and now had in his care. This had led to a brief interlude.

Mr. Bazalguet had caught the words. "Papers? What papers?" he asked. "Newspapers?"

"No, sir," said Sergeant Weeks. "They were writings. Poetry and the like— and foreign tongues." The bench sat up, and now Glyde had the hawk-look in his light eyes. Ingram stifled a yawn, and impressed the Bench.

Mr. Bazalguet, inclining his head to either side, enquired only with his eyebrows. Did we want these papers? Should we, perhaps, for form's sake examine them? Mr. Max Fortnaby was of opinion that we should. As they were handed up, the prisoner, who had been wetting his lips, said plainly, "There's nothing in them about this business," and was reproved by Sergeant Weeks.

A formidable pile of MS. was passed up by the Clerk, whose deprecating glances were not lost upon the Chairman. But Mr. Max Fortnaby cut open the budget in the midst, and peered in.

"janua vel domina penitus crudelior ipsa"—he read. It was a footnote. He lifted his eyebrows—then his eyes upon the accused.

"Propertius? You know Latin?"

"I know some, sir."

He returned to the MS., then again to Glyde.

"You are a bit of a poet, I see."

"Yes, sir. I hope so."

"If it leads you to battery, my young friend—" was his private comment. To Mr. Bazalguet he whispered, "The fellow's got scholarship. We might give these back, I think." Mr. Bazalguet was only too happy, and Glyde saw his offspring returned. Sergeant Weeks, safe in Mr. Fortnaby's good opinion, scrupulously wrapped and tied them. Mr. Fortnaby said, "Let them go back to his landlady," and caught the prisoner's eye.

It was now time to ask him whether he had anything to say. Glyde, perfectly master of himself, said that he pleaded Guilty, but would like to put a few questions. The Chairman, biting the tips of his fingers, nodded; and Mr. Fortnaby watched him.

Facing Ingram, who looked always to the Chairman, Glyde asked—"Did you dismiss your servant, as you put it, before I met you, or afterwards?" All eyes flew from Glyde to Ingram.

"Actually, afterwards," it was explained. "But the thing was understood before."

"By whom?"

"By me," said Ingram, "and—" He stopped there. A very interesting struggle, momentary, and done in silence, took place. Glyde was daring Ingram to bring in Sanchia's name, and Ingram could not do it.

"And—?" said Glyde. "And by whom?"

Ingram paused, biting his lips. He was pale. He took a long breath, and then said, "And by you, I have no doubt."

"Thank you," Glyde said. Then he began again. "Did you ask me to fight with you?"

"I believe I did."

"And I refused?"

"Yes," said Ingram, "you did."

"Did I say that I didn't fight with dogs?" Ingram smiled at the Chairman. "You did not." "I say so now," said Glyde, and stirred the Court. Mr. Bazalguet interfered. "You mustn't talk like that, Glyde. We can't have it, you know." Colonel Vero added, "Certainly not," and stretched his long legs out.

Glyde recovered himself, and begged pardon. He was told that he might go on, in reason, but declined. "Thank you, sir. I think I'll leave it so. I own to what I did."

He was told that he could be dealt with summarily, or sent for trial. "I'll take it from you, gentlemen," he said, and settled himself reposefully. The Bench drew together, with the Clerk intervening.

Mr. Bazalguet, double-chinned and comfortable squire, was disturbed by this case. What troubled him was that Ingram had not been straightforward. What was this dismissal of a servant? He knew, and therefore he asked the question. Fortnaby knew also, but didn't intend to say. Everybody, indeed, knew. Romance appeals to us all in diverse ways; and it was actually romance which settled Clyde's romantic affair.

Fortnaby, Maximilian Fortnaby, had been a schoolmaster, had succeeded to an estate at forty, and retired. He, with his keen face and trim whiskers, leaning his head on his hand, thus spoke in undertones, and carried the day. "The case is clear. The young man's taught himself tongues, and has poetry. He's been taught other things, too, and has got some of them wrongly. One thing he ought to learn is that to relieve your feelings is not the way to help the oppressed. He's set himself up for a champion, and tongues have got to work. I should give him three months." Mr. Bazalguet looked at the Clerk, who said it was a bad case. Mr. Ingram was a magistrate and—the maximum was two years. The third magistrate saw his way to impressing himself,—"Make it six months," he said. The Chairman agreed with him, until Colonel Vero said, "I should give him a year." That shocked him. "It'll take a long time for it to blow over, you know," he whispered to Fortnaby, who smiled and shrugged. "I don't suppose six will hurt him. He'll be able to write after a bit." "Ingram will go abroad, you know," said Mr. Bazalguet. "Did you happen to know the—party?" Fortnaby looked up quickly. "I? Oh, dear no. But I gather that the less we say the better. It was not an ordinary servant." Mr. Weir, the third magistrate, said, "A lady, I hear;" but his colleagues ignored him. Then they all sat up, and the Clerk sank into the well.

"Clyde," said Mr. Bazalguet, "you will have to go to prison for three months, with hard labour. I hope this will be a warning to you. I do indeed."

The prisoner was removed amid murmurs. There was some cheering outside the court—at which Ingram grimly smiled. But he was very pale, and did not leave the Sessions house until late in the afternoon. Old Mr. Bazalguet was very cool with him after court. He grunted when they met in the hall. "You go abroad?" he asked him. Ingram said, it was probable.



BOOK III

INTERLUDE OF THE RECLUSE PHILOSOPHER



I

A notable difference between the sexes is this: that a man will thrive for years—that is, his better part—upon love denied, and woman upon love fulfilled. So Senhouse, in his hopeless plight, starved and did well; dreams nourished him in what passes in England for solitude. From the grey of the mornings to the violet-lidded dusk his silence was rarely broken; and yet the music in his heart was continuous; his routine marched to a rhythm. The real presence of Sanchia was always with him, to intensify, accentuate, and make reasonable the perceptions of his quickened senses. Sense blended with sense—as when the sharp fragrance of the thyme which his feet crushed gave him the vision of her immortal beauty, or when, in the rustle of the wind-swept grasses, he had a consciousness of her thrilled heart beating near by. All nature, in fact, was vocal of Sanchia by day; and at night, presently, she stole white-footed down the slant rays of the moon and fed his soul upon exhalations of her own. Idle as he might have appeared to one who did not know the man—for beyond the routine of his handiwork he did nothing visible—he was really intensely busy. Out of the stores reaped and garnered in those meditative years was to come the substance of his after-life.

But no man in England may live three years in a grass valley unreported; his fame will spread abroad, scattered as birds sow seeds. Discreetly as he lived and little as he fared, he was at first a thing of doubt and suspicion, and won respect by slow degrees. Was he a coiner, stirring alloys over his night fires? Was he Antichrist, blaspheming the Trinity at daybreak? He was talked of by gaitered farmers at sheep-fairs, by teamsters at cross-roads, by maidens and their sweethearts on Sundays. The shepherds, it was thought, might have told more than they did. It was understood that they had caught him at his secrets times and again. But the shepherds had little to say of him but that he was a mellow man, knowing sheep and weather, and not imparting all that he knew. Similarly the gypsies, who alone travel the Race-plain in these days, and mostly by night, were believed to know him well; but they, too, kept their lore within the limits of their own shifty realm.

Rarely, indeed, he was seen. Sunday lovers, strolling hand in hand up the valley, came to a point where they went tiptoe and peered about for him. He might be described motionless, folded in his white robe, midway between ridge and hollow; or a gleam of him flashed between the trees of the brake would perhaps be all that they would get for an hour of watching. The hill brows would, on such days, be lined with patient onlookers; all eyes would be up the narrow valley to its head under Hirlebury, where, below the little wood, his grey hut could be seen, deep-eaved, mysterious, blankly holding its secrets behind empty windows. None ever ventured to explore at close quarters; and if the tenant had appeared, a thousand to one they would all have looked the other way. The Wiltshire peasant is a gentleman from the heart outwards. So, too, carters, ploughmen, reapers in the vales would sometimes see his gaunt figure monstrous on the sky-line, cowled and with uplifted arms, adoring (it was supposed) the sun, or leaning on his staff, motionless and rapt, meditating death and mutability. He lost nothing by such change apparitions; on the contrary, he gained the name of a wise man who had powers of divination and healing. In the cottage whither he went once a week for bread, a child had been sick of a burning fever. His hands, averred the mother, had cured it. Groping and making passes over its stomach, rubbing in oils, relief had come, then quiet sleep and a cool forehead. After this an old man, crippled with rheumatics, had hobbled up to the very edge of his dominion, and had waited shaking there upon his staff until he could get speech with the white stranger. He, too, had had the reward of his relief. If he was not made sound again, he was relieved and heartened. He had said that, if he was spared, he was hopeful to stretch to his height again, which had been six feet all but an inch. The stranger, said he, had put him in the way of new life, and whatever he might mean—whether that he were a Salvationist or a quack doctor—he would say no more. After that, a young woman went to him to get him to name the father of her child, and returned, and was modest for a month, and a good mother when the time came. And true it was that her chap came forward and saw the vicar about it, and that they were asked in church. Out of such things as these his fame grew.

The hunt struck upon him now and again, when the hounds in full cry streamed down his steep escarpments and threatened panic to his browsing goats. At such times he would rise up, white-robed and calm, as stay with a quiet gesture the scattering beasts. The whips would cap him, and the Master with his field find themselves in company of an equal. For his ease of manner never left him, nor that persuasive smile which made you think that the sun was come out. He had none of the airs of mystagogue, but talked to men, as he did to beasts, in the speech which was habitual to them. The lagging fox understood him when, grinning his fear and fatigue, he drew himself painfully through the furze. So did the hounds, athirst for his blood. Buck- skinned gentlemen, no less, found him affable and full of information—about anything and everything in the world except the line of the hunted fox. "Oh, come," he said once, "don't ask me to give him away. You're fifty to one, to start with; and the fact is I passed him my word that I wouldn't. I'll tell you what though. You shall offer me a cigarette. I haven't smoked for six days." Which was done.

His powers with children, his charm for them, his influence and fascination, which in course of time made him famous beyond these shores, arose out of a chance encounter not far from his hut. Three boys, breaking school in the nesting season, came suddenly upon him, and paled, and stood rooted. "Come on," he said, "I'll show you a thing or two that you've never seen before." He led them to places of marvel, which his speech made to glimmer with the hues of romance: the fresh grubbed earth where a badger had been routing, the quiet glade where, that morning, a polecat had washed her face. He brought them up to a vixen and her cubs, and got them all playing together. He let them hold leverets in their arms, milk his goats, as the kids milk them for their need; and showed them so much of the ways of birds that they forgot, while they were under the spell of him, to take any of their eggs. Crowning wonder of all—when a peewit, waiting on the down, dipped and circled about his head for a while and finally perched on his shoulder while he stood looking down upon her eggs in the bents! Such deeds as these fly broadcast over the villages, and on Saturdays he would be attended by a score of urchins, boys and girls. To a gamekeeper who came out after his lad, sapling ash in hand, he had that to say which convinced the man of his authority.

"'A says to me, 'There's a covey of ten in thicky holler,' where you could see neither land nor bird. 'I allow 'tis ten,' he says, 'but we won't be particular to a chick.' There was nine, if you credit me, that rose out of a kind of a dimple in the down, that you couldn't see, and no man could see. 'Lord love you,' I said, 'Mr. John, how ever did you see 'em?' He looks at me, and he says, very quiet, 'I never saw the birds, nor knew they was there. I saw the air. There's waves in this air,' he says, 'wrinkled waves; and they birds stirred 'em, like stones flung into a pond. Tom,' he says, to my Tom, 'if you look as close as I do,' he says, 'you'll see what I see.' And young Tom looks up at him, as a dog might, kind of faithful, and he says, 'I 'low I will, sir, please, sir.' I says to him, 'Can a man be taught the like o' that?' 'No,' says he, 'but a boy can.' 'What more could thicky boy learn?' I says, and he says, 'To understand his betters, and get great words, and do without a sight of things—for the more you do without,' he says, 'the more you have to deal with.' 'Such things as what, now, would he do without?' I wants to know. He looks at me. 'Food,' he says, kind of sharp; 'food when he's hungry, and clothing, and a bed; and money, and the respect of them that don't know anything, and other men's learning, and things he don't make for himself.' Heard any man ever the like o' that? But just you bide till I've done. 'Can a boy learn to do without drink?' I wants to know—for beer's been my downfall. 'He can,' says thicky man. 'And love?' I says; and 'No,' says he straight, 'he cannot. But he can learn the way of it; and that 'ull teach him to do wi'out lust.' 'Tis a wise thought, the like of that, I allow."

The gamekeeper paused for the murmurs of his auditory to circle about the tap-room, swell and subside, and then brought out his conclusion. There was book-learning to be faced. "How about scholarship? 'I'd give him none,' says the man. 'Swallerin' comes by nature, and through more than the mouth. I'd open him his eyes and ears, his fingers and toes, and the very hairs on the backs of his hands; and they'll all swaller in time, like the parts of the beastes do.' Now, that's a learned man, I allow. My boy must go to the Council School it does appear; but thicky man will give him more teaching in a week than school-master in a year—and there he goes o' Saturdays—and wants no driving, moreover." He returned to his beer, thoughtful-eyed.

The gamekeeper's son was twelve years old, and was the nucleus round which grew the Senhusian school of a later day, where neither reading nor writing could be had until the pupil was fifteen years old. But this is anticipatory, for the school was a matter of long gestation and tentative birth.



II

One September midnight, as he stirred a late supper over a small wood- fire, he was hailed by a cry from above. "Ho, you! I ask shelter," he was adjured. The quarter moon showed him a slim figure dark against the sky.

"Come down, and you shall have it," he answered, and continued to skim his broth.

The descent was painfully made, and it was long before the traveller stood blinking by his fire—a gaunt and hollow-eyed lad. Senhouse took him in at a glance, stained, out-at-elbows with the world, nursing a grudge, footsore and heartsore. He had a gypsy look, and yet had not a gypsy serenity. That is a race that is never angry at random; and never bitter at large. A gypsy will want a man's life; but if the man is not before him, will be content to wait until he is. But this wanderer seemed to have a quarrel with time and place, that they held not his enemy by the gullet.

"You travel late, my friend," said Senhouse briskly.

"I travel by night," said the stranger, "lest I should be seen by men or the sun."

Senhouse laughed. "In girum imus noctu, non ut consumimur igni.' They used to say that of the devils once upon a time. Devilish bad Latin; but it reads backwards as well as forwards, like the devil himself."

"My devil rides on my back," said the stranger, "and carries with him the fire that roasts me."

He was at once bitter and sententious. Senhouse put down his hurts to bruises of the self-esteem.

"I hope that you dropped him up above," he said cheerfully, "or that you will let me exorcise him. I've tried my hand with most kinds of devil. Are you a Roman?"

"Half," he was told, and, guessing which half, asked no more questions.

"You are pretty well done, I can see," he said. "You want more food. You want warm water, and a bed, and a dressing for your feet. You've been on the road too long."

The stranger was huddled by the fire, probing his wounded feet. "I'm cut to pieces," he said. "I've been over stubbles and flint. This is a cruel country."

"It's the sweetest in the world," Senhouse told him, "when you know your way about it. When you have the hang of it you need not touch the roads. You smell out the hedgerows, and every borstal leads you out on to the grass. But I'll own that there are thistles. I wear sandals myself. Now," he continued, ladling out of his pot with a wooden spoon, "here's your porridge, and there are bread and salt; and here water, and here goat's milk. Afterwards you shall have a pipe of tobacco, and some tea. Best begin while all's hot—and while you eat I'll look to your wounds. Finally, you shall be washed and clothed."

He went away, returning presently with water and a napkin. Kneeling, he bathed his guest's feet, wiped them, anointed, then wrapped them up in the napkin. The disconsolate one, mean-time, was supping like a wolf. He gulped at his porridge with quick snaps, tore his bread with his teeth. Senhouse gave him time, quietly eating his own supper, watching the red gleam die down in the poor wretch's eyes. Being himself a spare feeder, he was soon done, and at further business of hospitality. He set a great pipkin of water to heat, brought out a clean robe of white wool, a jelab like his own, and made some tea.

The stranger, then, being filled, cleansed and in warm raiment, stretched himself before the fire, and broke silence. He was still surly, but the grudge was not audible in his voice. "I took your fire for a gypsy camp, and was glad enough of it. I've come by the hills from Winterslow since dusk. You were right, though: I was done. I couldn't have dragged another furlong."

Senhouse nodded. "I thought not. Been long on the road?"

"Two months."

"From the North, I think? From Yorkshire?"

The stranger grunted his replies. His host judged that he had reasons for his reticence. There was a pause.

"You sup late," was then observed.

Senhouse replied, "I generally do. I take two meals a day—the first at noon, the second at midnight; but I believe that I could do without one of them. I never was much of an eater—and I need very little sleep. Somehow, although I am out at sunrise most mornings, I rarely sleep till two or thereabouts. Four hours are enough for me—and in the summer much less. Sometimes, when the fit is on me, I roam all night long, and come back and do my routine—and then sleep where I am, or may be. Precisians would grow mad at such a life—and yet I'm awfully healthy."

The stranger watched him. "You live here, then—and so?"

"I have lived here," said Senhouse, "for three years or more; but I've lived so for over twenty. I've wandered for most of that time, and know England from end to end; but now I seem to have got into a backwater, and I find that I travel farther, and see more, than I did when I was hardly for a week together in the same place. But that's reason-able enough, if you think of it. If you can do with-out time, space goes with it. If it don't matter when you are, it don't matter where."

The stranger lent this reasoning his gloomy meditation, which turned it inwards to himself and his rueful history. "I don't follow you, I believe," he said, "for very good reason. I hope you will never learn as I have that it does matter where you are." He stopped, then added, as if the admission was wrung out of him, "I've been in prison."

"So have I," said Senhouse, "and in Siberia at that. I was there for more than a year, though not all that time within walls. They let me loose when they found that I could be trusted, and I learned botany, and caught a marsh fever which nearly finished me. They wouldn't have me in after that, being quite content that I should rot in the open. I was succoured by a woman, one of those noble creatures who are made to give themselves. She gave me what blood she had left. God bless her: she blessed me."

"It was a woman," said the stranger, "that sent me to prison."

Senhouse, after looking him over, calmly replied, "I don't believe you. You mean, I think, that there was a woman, and you went to prison. You confuse her and your feelings about her. It is natural, but not very fine- mannered. No woman would have put the thing as you have put it to me."

The stranger shifted two or three times under his host's quiet regard: presently he said, "This is the tale in a nutshell. She was beautiful and kind to me; she was in a hateful place, and I loved her—and she knew it. There was a man with claims—rights he had none—preposterous claims, made infamous by his acts. The position was impossible, intolerable. She knew it, but did nothing. Women are like that—endlessly enduring; but men are not. I dragged him off a horse and thrashed him. He had me to gaol, and she went her ways, leaving a note for me, hoping I should do well. Do well! Much she cares what I do. Much care I." He ended with a sob which was like the cough of a wolf at night, and then turned his face away.

"Why should she care," asked Senhouse, "what becomes of you? By your act you dropped yourself out of her sphere. If she was to be degraded, as you call it, by whom was she degraded? But you talk there a language which I don't understand. You say that she was beautiful, and I suppose you know what you mean by the word. How then is a beautiful person to be degraded by anything the likes of you, or your fellow-dog, do to her? The thing's absurd. You can't claw her soul or blacken the edges of that. You can't sell that into prostitution or worse. That is her own, and it's that which makes her beautiful,—in spite of the precious pair of you, bickering and mauling each other to possess her. Possess her, poor fool! Can you possess moonlight? If you have degraded anything, you have degraded yourself. She remains where she is, entirely out of your reach."

The young man now turned his trapped and wretched face to the speaker. "You little know—" he began, then for weakness stopped. "I can't quarrel with you; wait till I've had a night's rest."

"You shall have it, and welcome," said Senhouse. "But you'll never quarrel with me. I believe I've got beyond that way of enforcing arguments which I fear may be unsound. I doubt if I have quarrelled with anybody for twenty years."

"There are some things which no man can stand," said the other, "and that was one. Your talk of the soul is very fine; but do you say that you don't love a woman's body as well as her soul?"

Senhouse was silent for a while; then he said, "No,—I can't say that. You have me there. I ought to, but I can't. And I think I owe you an apology for my heat, for the fact is that I've been in much of your position myself. There was a man once upon a time that I felt like thrashing—for much of your reason. But I didn't do it—for what seemed to me unanswerable reason. I did precisely the opposite—I did everything I could to ensure a miserable marriage for the being I loved best in all the world. I loathed the man, I loathed the bondage; but that's what I did. Now mark what follows. I didn't—I couldn't—degrade her; but I saw myself dragging like a worm in the mud while she soared out of my reach. And there I've been—of the slime slimy ever since. Where she is now I don't know, but I think in heaven. Heaven lay in her eyes—and whenever I look at the sky at night I see her there."

"You are talking above my head," said the stranger, "or above your own. Either I am a fool, or you a madman. You love a woman, and give her to another man? You love her, and secure her in slavery? You love her, and don't want her?"

"It is I that am the fool, not you," said Senhouse. "I do want her. I want nothing else in earth or heaven. And yet I know that I have her for ever. Our souls have touched each other. She is mine and I am hers. And yet I want her."

"Won't you get her? Don't you believe that you will?"

"God knows! God knows!"

"She was beautiful?"

"The dawn," said Senhouse, "was not more purely lovely than she. The dawn was in her face—the awfulness of it as well as its breathless beauty."

"My mistress," said the young man, "had the gait of a goddess in the corn. One thought of Demeter in the wheat. She was like ivory under the moon. She laughed rarely, but her voice was low and thrilled."

"Her breath," Senhouse continued, "was like the scent of bean-flowers. She sweetened the earth. It is true that she laughed seldom, but when she did the sun shone from behind a cloud. When she was silent you could hear her heart beat. She was deliberate, measured in all that she did—yet her spirit was as swift as the south-west wind. She did nothing that was not lovely, and never faltered in what she purposed. When first I came to know her and see the workings of her noble mind, I was so happy in the mere thought of her that I sang all day as I worked or walked. It never entered me for one minute that I could desire anything but the knowledge of her."

"I wanted my mistress altogether," the other broke in, "from the first moment to the last—fool, and wicked fool, as you may think me. I could see her bosom stir her gown—I could see the lines of her as she walked. She was kind to me, I tell you, and there were times when—alone with her —in her melting mood—in the wildness of my passion—but no! something held me: I never dared touch her.... And then he—the other—came back; he, with his 'claims' and 'rights'; and the thought of him, and what he could do—and did do—made me blind. You tell me that I sinned against her—"

"I don't," said Senhouse. "I tell you that you sinned against love. You don't know what love is."

"You say so. Maybe you know nothing about it. If you have reduced yourself to be contented with the soul of a woman, I have not. What have I to do with the soul?"

"Evidently nothing," said Senhouse. "How, pray, do you undertake to apprehend body's beauty unless you discern the soul in it—on which it shapes its beauty?"

"I know," the other replied, "that she has a lovely body, and gracious, free-moving ways; and I could have inferred her soul from them. I'll engage that you did the same thing. How are you to judge of the soul but by the hints which the body affords you?"

Senhouse made no answer, but remained musing. When he spoke it was as if he was resuming a tale half-told....

"She was in white—white as a cloud—and in a wood. Her hair reflected gold of the sun. She pinned her skirts about her waist, and put her bare foot into a pool of black water. She sank in it to the knee. She did not falter: her eyes were steady upon what she did."

The stranger took him up where he stopped, and continued the tale. "She could never falter in her purpose. She bared herself to the thighs. She went into the pool thigh-deep. Whiter than the lilies which she went to save, she raked the weed from them—you helping her."

"She did," said Senhouse, his eyes searching the fire. "And when, afterwards, she did what her heart bade her, she never faltered either, though she steeped her pure soul in foulness compared to which the black water was sweet. But do you suppose that any evil handling would stain her? You fool! You are incapable of seeing a good woman. In the same breath with which I spurned myself for having a moment's fear for her, I thanked God for having let me witness her action."

The rebuke was accepted, not because it was felt to be justified; but rather, it passed unheeded. The stranger had questions to ply.